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The Battle of Hoth
Background The Battle of Hoth was an End of Era event that took place in January of 2009. Although the Battle was between the New Republican fleet and the Death Star, several other events happened around it, and can be considered to be related to the battle. The Battle of Hoth The Destruction of Alderaan Prelude to the Battle Several Bothans were smuggled aboard the Death Star inside cargo containers on an old transport ship. Their mission was to infiltrate the various systems on the battle-station and retrieve some plans that were stored inside the mainframe computer. The mission was entirely secret, known only to those that were taking part in the operation. To begin with the mission went as planned, but very swiftly an alarm was set off when the security seal on a door was sliced. Shortly after a human was spotted wandering the halls of the Death Star, and the Bothans knew that they had to work fast. Not long after this, things began to get a bit more difficult. Reports were coming out that a few of those in the infiltration team were dead, and that there were Stormtroopers wandering the halls on the insertion level. The turbolift was blocked off by these forces. One of the bothans managed to make it to another level, and proceeded to hack several of the mainframe terminals. When half the infiltration team lay dead, this individual decided that he had done all that he could, and went on to use an escape pod to land on the surface of Korriban, and then make his way to safety. Eventually a single female Bothan was left wandering the halls, running from Stormtrooper patrols and looking for an exit other than the turbolift. She was growing desperate, and managed to escape the clutches of the chasing Imperials a couple of times. Finally, after wandering for several minutes, she spotted a small hatchway to the side of the corridor. Urged on by her luck, she quickly scaled the ladder and disappeared to another level of the battle-station. What she found when she got there was a mainframe terminal, a model exactly like those that she had been trained to hack into. She swiftly went about doing just that, and took the plans that came out of the printing compartment. Once the Bothan was finished, she decided to take a look around for other mainframe terminals nearby, but soon realised that this was probably a bad idea and turned around to walk back where she had come. There stood a Stormtrooper with his back turned to her. Realising that she was already pushing her luck too far, she swiftly snuck past the Stormtrooper, and into an escape pod, following the other survivor down onto the surface of Korriban, and to safety. After being smuggled away from Korriban, the two bothans managed to reach Coruscant and present their findings to the Chancellor of the New Republic. Naboo is Gone Beginning to suspect the very introverted and reclusive Cygnus Spaceworks of assisting the Grand Imperial Union in the construction of their fleet, the New Republic begins an infiltration and disruption mission against the company in their base of Ohma-D’un, a moon around the world of Naboo. Antarian Rangers and Jedi Knights are the first to infiltrate the base, swiftly followed by members of the New Republic Army. The infiltration team, which included one of the Bothans from the original Death Star mission, discovers nothing, although the very absence of anything is in itself suspicious as it seems that the entire engineering team of Cygnus Spaceworks had relocated to the safety of Korriban, the Grand Imperial Union’s base in the Horuset system. With this information, the New Republic Army leaves the Chommell system, but shortly afterwards receives a warning from the Grand Imperial Union simply stating that the next target had been chosen. This ominous warning forced the New Republic to quickly head for the Chommell system, and back to Naboo, but they were all too late. GNI Reports and witness accounts had already described the total vaporisation of the planet by the battle-station. The galaxy is once again horrified as the Grand Imperial Union shows its willingness to kill billions in their quest to re-establish a Galactic Empire. The Invasion of Coruscant Tensions were high in the New Republic. People were not sure which planet would be the next target of the massive super weapon, The Death Star. Constant vigilance was being maintained whilst the Grand Imperial Union planned its next assault. The Fleet Admiral of the New Republic was making his own plans to assault the Death Star in orbit of Korriban, the planet that the Grand Imperial Union was using as its base of operations. All of the soldiers were getting ready for the assault, and the ships in orbit of Coruscant were being prepared to jump. Reports suddenly came in of Stormtroopers landing secretly on Coruscant. More and more began to filter through the galactic communications, and the New Republic began to mobilise its troops to counteract the threat that these Stormtroopers represented. Some of the New Republican slicers then reported that the Death Star appeared to be on the move. Fleet Admiral Balthor decided that Hoth was the likely target, and changed the target for the strike from Korriban to Hoth. A small garrison was left to defend Coruscant, the New Republic unwilling to change their plans at the last minute. Battle Over Hoth When the New Republican fleet arrived over the planet of Hoth, the Death Star was still in hyperspace. However, a few of the faster ships in the Imperial fleet were waiting just a single sector outside of Hoth space. The Fleet Admiral had guessed correctly where the attack would take place. It was an anxious few minutes, waiting for the Death Star to arrive. The situation on Coruscant was getting progressively worse, but the New Republic decided that the battle they were about to undertake had more military value than defending Coruscant from the Grand Imperial Union’s army. Finally, the Death Star arrived, bringing with it its support fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers. Immediately the Death Star headed towards the planet, the ISDs starting to arrange themselves into a fighting formation. The New Republic immediately responded, turning their ships towards the attackers, and instructing their squadron leaders to scramble their ships. The Battle of Hoth was about to begin in earnest. As the first few waves of fighters hit each other it was a close battle. The starfighters were giving as good as they got. Several A-Wings and Sith Raider spacecraft were destroyed. Then suddenly an Imperial Star Destroyer erupted into flames, its shields having failed moments before. The onslaught had dealt its first major casualty and it came in the form of an Imperial warship. Things progressively got worse for the Grand Imperial Union’s fleet as they steadily lost capital ship after capital ship to the New Republic Navy. Very few of the Republic’s ships were getting damaged, and the battle seemed to be turning massively in their favour. Double Admiral Jhoira Ghitu, from the engineering company Cygnus Spaceworks arrived in the system, bringing with her the ground forces that had yet to arrive at Hoth. Slicing into the computer systems aboard the Death Star, Ghitu’s Assassin-Corvette made several attempts at landing aboard the Death Star, but was repulsed each time. She had to take refuge aboard the MC90 belonging to the Vice Admiral, and was allowed to refuel and recharge her shields before trying again. A public ship, unknowingly to the New Republic containing the Emperor Ba’buir Kama, streaked out of hyperspace into the middle of the battle. It was immediately tractored aboard the Death Star, and very little was thought about it at that moment in time. When Ghitu attempted her next forced landing she was instead tractored aboard the Death Star along with her ARC Commando cargo. Radio frequency messages began flooding across the starsystem as the battle-station’s main laser was being prepared to fire, its target seemingly the planet of Hoth itself. Evacuation messages began to go out all over the planet in the hopes that people might find the time to save themselves before the massive burst of energy vaporised the planet. There was nothing that the Fleet over Hoth could do to help as the battle-station’s laser began to light up a bright green, and then plunge its way into the heart of the Ice Planet. Enraged, the New Republic Admiral redoubled his efforts to bring the monstrosity to its knees. The Imperial Fleet, by now, was almost entirely destroyed, with the New Republic having lost a single Nebulon-B Frigate and a few squadrons of A-Wings. The Death Star hadn’t given up yet, however. The very same laser that had destroyed the planet of Hoth was now turning its way towards the MC90 manned by the Vice Admiral of the New Republic fleet. As the battle-station fired, the ship belonging to the Vice Admiral erupted into a huge fireball of burning atmosphere and ordinance. His ship was gone in an instant, leaving half of the New Republic fleet completely without direction. However, the Imperial fleet was by now completely decimated, with just the Death Star left to try to fend for itself. Its energy reserves, having been massively depleted already, began to dwindle, and the surviving ships in the New Republican fleet settled in for the long siege. The Death Star What awaited the boarding party comprised of six men and two women, seven ARC Troopers and a combat engineer, nobody could have predicted. When the Assassin Corvette finally touched down inside the Death Star's main hangar bays, the boarding team leaped from the boarding ramp with blasters firing on full-auto, expecting to find legions of Stormtroopers prepared for battle. Instead, there was nothing. The Empire had taken great care in completely sealing off the hangar decks from the rest of the ship, effectively cutting off the last hope for the Republic in taking down the monstrosity of a battle station. Nonetheless, traversing into the winding, endless corridors, the boarding party split up into two teams to search every possible corner for a route to get to the battle station's power core. While the battle was still raging in space, even the calm interior of the giant durasteel sphere seemed like a war zone. Panels being blown from the walls, conduits exploding in showers of sparks, shrieks and yells heard echoing throughout the corridors from the deep places of the station. After endless searching, one of the strike teams radioed finding a working central turbolift. While the team was comprised of highly skilled combatants, trained slicers were not among them. Every attempt to override the lockout mechanism was foiled by the highly-advanced electrical systems wired into the monstrosity. As the troopers' hopes of overriding the lift waned, something astonishing happened. The lift began rocketing upwards on its own, the sudden unexpected shift in momentum enough to pummel anyone against the floor. As the troopers recovered, the doors slowly crawled open, as if hesitating to reveal who had summoned the lift. Through the deafening silence came the unmistakable pop-hiss of a lightsaber ignition, the blade of Ba'buir Kama slicing through the air with unwavering accuracy. Stunned by the initial blow, one of the troopers let loose a barrage of full-auto repeater fire at The Eidolon, his rapid saber movements quickly deflecting them back at the other troopers with perfect precision. Continuing the surprise assault, the Sith Lord swept through the turbolift sending deadly arcs of lightning from his fingertips, electrocuting the soldiers where they stood. All but two were sent to the deck in a twitching, unconscious heap, and those two somehow managed to remain standing long enough to fire off a volley of shots into Babuir's chest, sending him reeling in agony down the corridor and out of sight. Moving quickly to revive the downed troopers, the group hastily got back on its feet, determined now more than ever to get to the central power nexus and destroy the hulking beast from inside its belly. While the stunned Troopers slowly recovered, the two who remained fully conscious set out at once down the corridor, uncertain what laid in wait for them around each and every corner. When word came over the comms about hidden escape hatches found to be scattered throughout the station by the Bothan Infiltration team, the two Troopers immediately knew these hatches would be the only way into the bowels of the ship. Spotting one of these hidden hatches almost instantly, the two crawled deeper into the ship, only to find a labyrinth of identical-looking corridors and bulkheads. Led by determination and sheer desperation alone, they managed to finally locate the central power nexus and one by one deactivate the seven secondary reactor couplings, as well as the central reactor core, effectively draining the vital organs throughout the battle station of energy. They then activated the self-destruct countdown sequence using the remaining energy stored in the buffers, as a final precaution to make sure nobody would ever use the horrible planet-killer ever again. As warning alarms blared in every corner of the battle station, the ARC Troopers sped through the halls in a desperate attempt to return to the Assassin Corvette they flew in on. Only one of the Troopers made it back to the ship alive, while four others were trapped inside the power nexus by emergency blast doors. One by one escape pods were being launched as a last-ditch effort to save their lives by the remaining Imperial forces aboard the Death Star, each of which was quickly dispatched by the hail of turbolasers and rockets erupting from the devastating Republic fleet. Not willing to risk the possibility of an Imperial somehow stumbling into the reactor and disabling the self-destruct sequence, the Troopers waited and kept watch inside their durasteel prison, unfaltered by the impending doom inching ever closer as the time on the clock ticked away. With under a minute left on the clock, the remaining four Troopers had a decision to choose: remain in the core to ensure the self-destruct was successful, or make a mad dash for the escape pods, abandoning their cause in the hope that no Imperial forces remained on board. One of the Troopers issued the order for the other three to run for the pods, that he himself would wait behind allowing the rest to escape with their lives. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, the station seemed almost sentient, as if it realized these would be the final few moments of its short history, and from within the central nexus of the power station, it activated a hidden escape pod chamber, allowing the lone ARC Trooper safe passage away from utter annihilation as the great sphere's countdown reached terminus and every square inch of durasteel was reduced to smoldering ash in the vastness of space. Pulverized by an incredible blast, the charred embers of the recently-destroyed ice world Hoth mixed freely with the remains of its destroyer, in an ending too poetic to ignore. The Aftermath With the destruction of the Death Star, and the death of the Emperor, the Grand Imperial Union crumbled. The figurehead of the Stormtrooper Corps, the infamous Commander Varn Andras was captured by the Jedi, and taken into custody. The Grand Imperial Union was essentially no more, with only tiny remnants of resistance left. These were mostly focused around the region of Kuat. Kessel, Korriban and the old Hoth system were removed from galactic navigation charts, their locations mostly forgotten as relics of an era best forgotten. Category:Battles Category:Events Category:End of Era